Bulgaria Preparing Its Army for NATO

AIM Sofia, 18 June, 1998

For the first time after 16 years, the Bulgarian army has had its drill. At the artillery range near the Black-Sea town Sablo in the north-east of Bulgaria, about 3500 soldiers and officers were drilling sea-side landing operation in which three branches of service took part - the army, the navy and the air-force. Four billion levs from the state budget which amounts to about 4 million German marks, that was the price tax payers in Bulgaria paid for this drill. For the sake of comparison, in the greatest annual drill of NATO on the terrtory of the USA which is at this moment going on in North Carolina, two thousand soldiers from 12 countries are engaged.

The real price of the drill amounts to 1.9 billion levs, said colonel general Miho Mihov, head of the General Staff of the Bulgarian army, one of the most experienced air-force aces.

President Petar Stojanov, who in the capacity of the supreme commander of Bulgarian army attended the last part of the manoeuvres, stressed: "If by the end of the century we must get prepared to join the NATO, it means a lot of money, a lot of drill, a lot of air-force flights". The president believes that such and greater drills should be organized all the time, but he failed to say how they would be financed. The June '98 drill has a great psychological significance since it raised self-confidence of Bulgarian officers and soldiers. "For the first time since 1982, they have shown that they can fight not only on maps in silent headquarters, but also in the battlefield", president Petar Stojanov concluded.

Bulgarian president arrived at the drill directly from Yalta where a summit was held of countries which belong to the Black Sea economic cooperation. In the presence of the high command of June '98 drill, he declared that Greece officially supported the proposal of Bulgaria that the headquarters of multinational peace forces in the Balkan be deployed in Plovdiv. "I asked my Turkish colleagues Suleiman Demirel what his stand was concerning location of the Balkan headquarters". "'Our reply will be favourable for you, but it is still too early for me to state that', Demirel answered to my questions", Stojanov added. However, this important statement did not make a very good impression on high officers surrounding the president. Creation of Balkan "blue helmets" for them is a part of activities of the Bulgarian government aimed at joining NATO which is in fact characterized by numerous failures and haste.

A typical example of that is the destiny of the idea on creation of professional Bulgarian army which is a compulsory demand of NATO from every country that wishes to join the treaty. According to the initial plan, the rannks of the Bulgarian army should have been filled with 1,700 professionals. However, this number was suddenly reduced to 480 with no explanation of the general staff. But independent experts listed a series of serious mistakes made in recruiting paid soldiers. According to them, certain oversights were not taken into account, which had been made during the previous campaign of election of professional rangers, whose task was probably to participate in peace operations abroad with adequate bonuses in foreign currency. The salary is still one of the eternal dreams of impoverished Bulgarians, but that will not make the Bulgarian army professional.

If rangers or Bulgarian "blue helmets" have any future within the quick-reaction corps which is going to be established on the basis of former second army and which will be seated in Plovdiv, things do not look so well for the professional soldiers. Only men who have already done compulsory service in the army are recruited again, so they can hardly return to the barracks even if they were paid. In this way, a potential group of romantic teenagers who are influenced by militqry fashion will be eliminated. Potential paid soldiers also have a high educational barrier to cross - it is necessary to have at least a secondary school diploma. It is forgotten that young men with such qualifications can seek jobs elsewhere. Advertising campaign in mass media was old-fashioned again this year and promised the paid soldiers that they would get certian privileged posts in the army, but not that they would become a part of the elite of Bulgarian army. This brought about the triple reduction of the number of professional soldiers for this year planned in the beginning.

Every problem which appears in certain phases of compulsory reorganization of our army on its road to NATO reduces our chances to join with the "second group", it is believed here. One of the best known Bulgarian intellectuals, Vladislav Todorov, who teaches at Pennsylvania University in the USA, even allows the possibility that if this "second group" is received in NATO, it would take place according to quite different rules. "From now on it is important in what direction the treaty will develop as a system of security - as military or police. This will condition chances of Bulgaria - whether it will actually join NATO or cooperate with it", Todorov states. Since he knows and analyses stands of the American administration, he forecasts redefining and increasing of the role of the Partnership for Peace program. The most probable chance of Bulgaria to gain significance in the region will depend on what role it will be given in this sense. For the Bulgarian-American intellectual, the more probably variant for Bulgaria is its increased role in the Partnership for Peace and not its joining the treaty. Nevertheless, Vladislav Todorov warns Bulgarian authorities: you should be careful and aware that you have two strategies of full-fledged membership at your disposal. The reason for this is that candidacy is put up in front of one institution - NATO, but it is actually joined through another - the American Senate.

AIM Sofia

GEORGI FILIPOV